You all have been a great congregation!!! Thanks, I'll be here all week!!!
Any suggestions on how to stop the congregation from bursting into applause after Mass? Seriously. It's a good mass (or at least, good enough, musical style is charismatic but no guitars and content of songs is not heretical, strong faithful homilies, tabernacle in the right place) but they CLAP at the end which is so deeply annoying, like they just saw a theater performance. Or, any suggestions on how I can get over this?
Applause used to happen after every Mass at Saint Mark's. The pastor got tired of it for the reasons listed above and started a campaign. First, he preached about how applause is not an effective reaction to the Gospel and how if they thought they could just clap-n-go and not live out the Gospel, they were fooling themselves. He had announcement read at the beginning of Mass on successive weeks by the cantor, choir director or organist. We were asked to put them in our own words in order to make sure they were communicated sincerely.
After about 3 weeks - no more applause. It had actually tapered off each week as people get the clue. I heard a few parishoners complain about it, but now we don't miss it and there's not the feeling of leaving a concert hall or theater at the end of Mass.
So it worked out fine. Just took a conscious effort by pastor, priests and liturgy staff to discourage it.
